On The Incarnation Analysis

Corruption and salvation are the main concepts in the book, On the Incarnation, by St. Athenians. He uses examples from the bible to help show God’s love for human beings. Before the fall of human beings, humans are seen “as an image of His own eternity. (Athanasius 10)” They were born free of corruption. The devil then interfered. He brought the human race into a world of corruption. Corruption is a world that came to be known to humanity. This caused humanity’s right to immortality to be taken away from them. Death was then brought into the world. Wisdom states, “God created man for incorruption and as an image of His own eternity; but by envy of the devil death entered into the world. (Athanasius 10)” After death was introduced, people
“It would, of course, have been unthinkable that God should go back upon His word and that man, having transgressed, should not die; but it was equally monstrous that beings which once had shared the nature of the Word should perish and turn back again into non-existence through corruption. (Athanasius 12)” God can be seen as having a limit. This limit is established when he saw humanity at the brink of destruction. God cannot go back on his word but he also cannot allow humanity to perish because of corruption. He has to find a balance that will hold his word true and his actions right. Because human beings are his creations, he does not want them to lose the Word. He knows they were deceived. He knows the devil brought sin into the word but he also knew that original sin was not made possible without the doubt Adam and Eve had in God (Athanasius).
Transgression to God’s rule made original sin come into this world. Athanasius explains that through repentant alone nothing will change. People will still be falling into corruption, losing his Word. It did not incorrupt humans. The only thing repentance did was keep people from sinning. When faced with death, repentance for your actions could not save anyone. When humanity transgressed God’s rule, corruption took control of their hearts. When this happened, humanity was no longer able to have salvation through repentance. Without going against His Word, God found a way to save human beings
What better way of fixing corruption than with God himself? “His part it was, and His alone, both to bring again the corruptible to incorruption and to maintain for the Father His consistency of character with all. For He alone, being Word of the Father and above all, was in consequence both able to recreate all, and worthy to suffer on behalf of all and to be an ambassador for all with the Father. (Athanasius 14)” “He entered the world in a new way, stooping to our level in His love and Self-revealing to us. He saw the reasonable race, the race of men that, like Himself, expressed the Father's Mind, wasting out of existence, and death reigning over all in corruption. He saw that corruption held us all the closer, because it was the penalty for the Transgression; He saw, too, how unthinkable it would be for the law to be repealed before it was fulfilled. He saw how unseemly it was that the very things of which He Himself was the Artificer should be disappearing. (Athanasius 15)” As seen in these example, God is the only being worthy of fixing corruption. He is an omnipotent being; he has no limits in power. This means that he has the ability to fix corruption, a task no human could ever hope to accomplish. God is also omniscient; he has unlimited knowledge. He uses this knowledge to understand human emotions. Having a consistent character, he did not want to act on sheer emotions. He wanted to give his creations a